ST. AUGUSTIN
THE CITY OF GOD

BOOK XV.

ARGUMENT.

HAVING TREATED IN THE FOUR PRECEDING BOOKS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TWO CITIES,
THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY, AUGUSTIN EXPLAINS THEIR GROWTH AND PROGRESS IN
THE FOUR BOOKS WHICH FOLLOW; AND, IN ORDER TO DO SO, HE EXPLAINS THE CHIEF
PASSAGES OF THE SACRED HISTORY WHICH BEAR UPON THIS SUBJECT. IN THIS FIFTEENTH
BOOK HE OPENS THIS PART OF HIS WORK BY EXPLAINING THE EVENTS RECORDED IN GENESIS
FROM THE TIME OF CAIN AND ABEL TO THE DELUGE.

CHAP. 1.--OF THE TWO LINES OF THE HUMAN RACE WHICH FROM FIRST TO LAST DIVIDE
IT.

OF the bliss of Paradise, of Paradise itself, and of the life of our first
parents there, and of their sin and punishment, many have thought much, spoken
much, written much. We ourselves, too, have spoken of these things in the foregoing
books, and have written either what we read in the Holy Scriptures, or what
we could reasonably deduce from them. And were we to enter into a more detailed
investigation of these matters, an endless number of endless questions would
arise, which would involve us in a larger work than the present occasion admits.
We cannot be expected to find room for replying to every question that may
be started by unoccupied and captious men, who are ever more ready to ask questions
than capable of understanding the answer. Yet I trust we have already done
justice to these great and difficult questions regarding the beginning of the
world, or of the soul, or of the human race itself. This race we have distributed
into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according to man, the
other of those who live according to God. And these we also mystically call
the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one is predestined
to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with
the devil. This, however, is their end, and of it we are to speak afterwards.
At present, as we have said enough about their origin, whether among the angels,
whose numbers we know not, or in the two first human beings, it seems suitable
to attempt an account of their career, from the time when our two first parents
began to propagate the race until all human generation shall cease. For this
whole time or world-age, in which the dying give place and those who are born
succeed, is the career of these two cities concerning which we treat.

Of these
two first parents of the human race, then, Cain was the first-born, and he
belonged to the
city of
men; after him was born Abel, who belonged to
the city of God. For as in the individual the truth of the apostle's statement
is discerned, "that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is
natural, and afterward that which is spiritual,"(1) whence it comes to
pass that each man, being derived from a condemned stock, is first of all born
of Adam evil and carnal, and becomes good and spiritual only afterwards, when
he is grafted into Christ by regeneration: so was it in the human race as a
whole. When these two cities began to run their course by a series of deaths
and births, the citizen of this world was the first-born, and after him the
stranger in this world, the citizen of the city of God, predestinated by grace,
elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, and by grace a citizen above.
By grace,--for so far as regards himself he is sprung from the same mass, all
of which is condemned in its origin: but God, like a potter (for this comparison
is introduced by the apostle judiciously, and not without thought), of the
same lump made one vessel to honor, another to dishonor.(1) But first the vessel
to dishonor was made, and after it another to honor. For in each individual,
as I have already said, there is first of all that which is reprobate, that
from which we must begin, but in which we need not necessarily remain; afterwards
is that which is well-approved, to which we may by advancing attain, and in
which, when we have reached it we may abide. Not, indeed, that every wicked
man shall be good, but that no one will be good who was not first of all wicked
but the sooner any one becomes a good man, the more speedily does he receive
this title, and abolish the old name in the new. Accordingly, it is recorded
of Cain that he built a city,(2) but Abel, being a sojourner, built none. For
the city of the saints is above, although here below it begets citizens, in
whom it sojourns till the time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together
all in the day of the resurrection; and then shall the promised kingdom be
given to them, in which they shall reign with their Prince, the King of the
ages, time without end.

CHAP. 2.--OF THE CHILDREN OF THE FLESH AND THE CHILDREN OF THE PROMISE.

There
was indeed on earth, so long as it was needed, a symbol and foreshadowing
image of this city,
which served
the purpose of reminding men that such a city
was to be rather than of making it present; and this image was itself called
the holy city, as a symbol of the future city, though not itself the reality.
Of this city which served as an image, and of that free city it typified, Paul
writes to the Galatians in these terms: "Tell me, ye that desire to be
under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had
two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a free woman. But he who was
of the bond woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by
promise. Which things are an allegory:(3) for these are the two covenants;
the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For
this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is,
and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free,
which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that
bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not for the desolate
hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as
Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after
the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.
Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bond woman and her son:
for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman.
And we, brethren, are not children of the bond woman, but of the free, in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free."(4) This interpretation of
the passage, handed down to us with apostolic authority, shows how we ought
to understand the Scriptures of the two covenants--the old and the new. One
portion of the earthly city became an image of the heavenly city, not having
a significance of its own, but signifying another city, and therefore serving,
or" being in bondage." For it was founded not for its own sake, but
to prefigure another city; and this shadow of a city was also itself foreshadowed
by another preceding figure. For Sarah's handmaid Agar, and her son, were an
image of this image. And as the shadows were to pass away when the full light
came, Sarah, the free woman, who prefigured the free city (which again was
also prefigured in another way by that shadow of a city Jerusalem), therefore
said, "Cast out the bond woman and her son; for the son of the bond woman
shall not be heir with my son Isaac," or, as the apostle says, "with
the son of the free woman." In the earthly city, then, we find two things--its
own obvious presence, and its symbolic presentation of the heavenly city. Now
citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature vitiated by sin, but to
the heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin; whence the former are called "vessels
of wrath," the latter "vessels of mercy."(5) And this was typified
in the two sons of Abraham,--Ishmael, the son of Agar the handmaid, being born
according to the flesh, while Isaac was born of the free woman Sarah, according
to the promise. Both, indeed, were of Abraham's seed; but the one was begotten
by natural law, the other was given by gracious promise. In the one birth,
human action is revealed; in the other, a divine kindness comes to light.

CHAP. 3.--THAT SARAH'S BARRENNESS WAS MADE PRODUCTIVE BY GOD'S GRACE.

Sarah,
in fact, was barren; and, despairing of offspring, and being resolved that
she would have at least
through her handmaid that blessing she saw she
could not in her own person procure, she gave her handmaid to her husband,
to whom she herself had been unable to bear children. From him she required
this conjugal duty, exercising her own right in another's womb. And thus Ishmael
was born according to the common law of human generation, by sexual intercourse.
Therefore it is said that he was born "according to the flesh,"--not
because such births are not the gifts of God, nor His handiwork, whose creative
wisdom" reaches," as it is written, "from one end to another
mightily, and sweetly cloth she order all things,"(1) but because, in
a case in which the gift of God, which was not due to men and was the gratuitous
largess of grace, was to be conspicuous, it was requisite that a son be given
in a way which no effort of nature could compass. Nature denies children to
persons of the age which Abraham and Sarah had now reached; besides that, in
Sarah's case, she was barren even in her prime. This nature, so constituted
that offspring could not be looked for, symbolized the nature of the human
race vitiated by sin and by just consequence condemned. which deserves no future
felicity. Fitly, therefore, does Isaac, the child of promise, typify the children
of grace, the citizens of the free city, who dwell together in everlasting
peace, in which self-love and self-will have no place, but a ministering love
that rejoices in the common joy all, of many hearts makes one, that is to say,
secures a perfect concord.

CHAP. 4.--OF THE CONFLICT AND PEACE OF THE EARTHLY CITY.

But the earthly city, which shall not be everlasting (for it will no longer
be a city when it has been committed to the extreme penalty), has its good
in this world, and rejoices in it with such joy as such things can afford.
But as this is not a good which can discharge its devotees of all distresses,
this city is often divided against itself by litigations, wars, quarrels, and
such victories as are either life-destroying or short-lived. For each part
of it that arms against another part of it seeks to triumph over the nations
through itself in bondage to vice. If, when it has conquered, it is inflated
with pride, its victory is life-destroying; but if it turns its thoughts upon
the common casualties of our mortal condition, and is rather anxious concerning
the disasters that may befall it than elated with the successes already achieved,
this victory, though of a higher kind, is still only shot-lived; for it cannot
abidingly rule over those whom it has victoriously subjugated. But the things
which this city desires cannot justly be said to be evil, for it is itself,
in its own kind, better than all other human good. For it desires earthly peace
for the sake of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order to attain
to this peace; since, if it has conquered, and there remains no one to resist
it, it enjoys a peace which it had not while there were opposing parties who
contested for the enjoyment of those things which were too small to satisfy
both. This peace is purchased by toilsome wars; it is obtained by what they
style a glorious victory. Now, when victory remains with the party which had
the juster cause, who hesitates to congratulate the victor, and style it a
desirable peace? These things, then, are good things, and without doubt the
gifts of God. But if they neglect the better things of the heavenly city, which
are secured by eternal victory and peace never-ending, and so inordinately
covet these present good things that they believe them to be the only desirable
things, or love them better than those things which are believed to be better,--if
this be so, then it is necessary that misery follow and ever increase.

CHAP. 5.--OF THE FRATRICIDAL ACT OF THE FOUNDER OF THE EARTHLY CITY, AND THE
CORRESPONDING CRIME OF THE FOUNDER OF ROME.

Thus the
founder of the earthly city was a fratricide. Overcome with envy, he slew
his own brother,
a citizen
of the eternal city, and a sojourner on
earth. So that we cannot be surprised that this first specimen, or, as the
Greeks say, archetype of crime, should, long afterwards, find a corresponding
crime at the foundation of that city which was destined to reign over so many
nations, and be the head of this earthly city of which we speak. For of that
city also, as one of their poets has mentioned, "the first walls were
stained with a brother's blood,"(2) or, as Roman history records, Remus
was slain by his brother Romulus. And thus there is no difference between the
foundation of this city and of the earthly city, unless it be that Romulus
and Remus were both citizens of the earthly city. Both desired to have the
glory of founding the Roman republic, but both could not have as much glory
as if one only claimed it; for he who wished to have the glory of ruling would
certainly rule less if his power were shared by a living consort. In order,
therefore, that the whole glory might be enjoyed by one, his consort was removed;
and by this crime the empire was made larger indeed, but inferior, while otherwise
it would have been less, but better. Now these brothers, Cain and Abel, were
not both animated by the same earthly desires, nor did the murderer envy the
other because he feared that, by both ruling, his own dominion would be curtailed,--for
Abel was not solicitous to rule in that city which his brother built,--he was
moved by that diabolical, envious hatred with which the evil regard the good,
for no other reason than because they are good while themselves are evil. For
the possession of goodness is by no means diminished by being shared with a
partner either permanent or temporarily assumed; on the contrary, the possession
of goodness is increased in proportion to the concord and charity of each of
those who share it. In short, he who is unwilling to share this possession
cannot have it; and he who is most willing to admit others to a share of it
will have the greatest abundance to himself. The quarrel, then, between Romulus
and Remus shows how the earthly city is divided against itself; that which
fell out between Cain and Abel illustrated the hatred that subsists between
the two cities, that of God and that of men. The wicked war with the wicked;
the good also war with the wicked. But with the good, good men, or at least
perfectly good men, cannot war; though, while only going on towards perfection,
they war to this extent, that every good man resists others in those points
in which he resists himself. And in each individual "the flesh lusteth
against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh."(1) This spiritual
lusting, therefore, can be at war with the carnal lust of another man; or carnal
lust may be at war with the spiritual desires of another, in some such way
as good and wicked men are at war; or, still more certainly, the carnal lusts
of two men, good but not yet perfect, contend together, just as the wicked
contend with the wicked, until the health of those who are under the treatment
of grace attains final victory.

CHAP. 6.--OF THE WEAKNESSES WHICH EVEN THE CITIZENS OF THE CITY OF GOD SUFFER
DURING THIS EARTHLY PILGRIMAGE IN PUNISHMENT OF SIN, AND OF WHICH THEY ARE
HEALED BY GOD'S CARE.

This sickliness--that
is to say, that disobedience of which we spoke in the fourteenth book--is
the punishment
of the first disobedience. It is therefore
not nature, but vice; and therefore it is said to the good who are growing
in grace, and living in this pilgrimage by faith, "Bear ye one another's
burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."(2) In like manner it is said
elsewhere, "Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, sup
port the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none render evil for evil
unto any man."(3) And in another place, "If a man be overtaken in
a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."(4) And elsewhere, "Let
not the sun go down upon your wrath."(5) And in the Gospel, "If thy
brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee
and him alone."(6) So too of sins which may create scandal the apostle
says, "Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear."(7)
For this purpose, and that we may keep that peace without which no man can
see the Lord,(8) many precepts are given which carefully inculcate mutual forgiveness;
among which we may number that terrible word in which the servant is ordered
to pay his formerly remitted debt of ten thousand talents, because he did not
remit to his fellow-servant his debt of two hundred pence. To which parable
the Lord Jesus added the words, "So likewise shall my heavenly Father
do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother."(9)
It is thus the citizens of the city of God are healed while still they sojourn
in this earth and sigh for the peace of their heavenly country. The Holy Spirit,
too, works within, that the medicine externally applied may have some good
result. Otherwise, even though God Himself make use of the creatures that are
subject to Him, and in some human form address our human senses, whether we
receive those impressions in sleep or in some external appearance, still, if
He does not by His own inward grace sway and act upon the mind, no preaching
of the truth is of any avail. But this God does, distinguishing between the
vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy, by His own very secret but very
just providence. When He Himself aids the soul in His own hidden and wonderful
ways, and the sin which dwells in our members, and is, as the apostle teaches,
rather the punishment of sin, does not reign in our mortal body to obey the
lusts of it, and when we no longer yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness,(10)
then the soul is converted from its own evil and selfish desires, and, God
possessing it, it possesses itself in peace even in this life, and afterwards,
with perfected health and endowed with immortality, will reign without sin
in peace everlasting.

CHAP. 7.--OF THE CAUSE OF CAIN'S CRIME HIS OBSTINACY, WHICH NOT EVEN THE WORD
OF GOD COULD SUBDUE.

But though
God made use of this very mode of address which we have been endeavoring
to explain, and
spoke
to Cain in that form by which He was wont to accommodate
Himself to our first parents and converse with them as a companion, what good
influence had it on Cain? Did he not fulfill his wicked intention of killing
his brother even after he was warned by God's voice? For when God had made
a distinction between their sacrifices, neglecting Cain's, regarding Abel's,
which was doubtless intimated by some visible sign to that effect; and when
God had done so because the works of the one were evil but those of his brother
good, Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. For thus it is written: "And
the Lord said unto Cain, Why are thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou offerest rightly, but dost not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned?
Fret not thyself, for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shalt rule over
him." In this admonition administered by God to Cain, that clause indeed, "If
thou offerest rightly, but dost not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned?" is
obscure, inasmuch as it is not apparent for what reason or purpose it was spoken,
and many meanings have been put upon it, as each one who discusses it attempts
to interpret it according to the rule of faith. The truth is, that a sacrifice
is "rightly offered" when it is offered to the true God, to whom
alone we must sacrifice. And it is "not rightly distinguished" when
we do not rightly distinguish the places or seasons or materials of the offering,
or the person offering, or the person to whom it is presented, or those to
whom it is distributed for food after the oblation. Distinguishing(2) is here
used for discriminating,--whether when an offering is made in a place where
it ought not or of a material which ought to be offered not there but elsewhere;
or when an offering is made at a wrong time, or of a material suitable not
then but at some other time; or when that is offered which in no place nor
any time ought to be offered; or when a man keeps to himself choicer specimens
of the same kind than he offers to God; or when he or any other who may not
lawfully partake profanely eats of the oblation. In which of these particulars
Cain displeased God, it is difficult to determine. But the Apostle John, speaking
of these brothers, says, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and
slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil,
and his brother's righteous."(3) He thus gives us to understand that God
did not respect his offering because it was not rightly "distinguished" in
this, that he gave to God something of his own but kept himself to himself.
For this all do who follow not God's will but their own, who live not with
an upright but a crooked heart, and yet offer to God such gifts as they suppose
will procure from Him that He aid them not by healing but by gratifying their
evil passions. And this is the characteristic of the earthly city, that it
worships God or gods who may aid it in reigning victoriously and peacefully
on earth not through love of doing good, but through lust of rule. The good
use the world that they may enjoy God: the wicked, on the contrary, that they
may enjoy the world would fain use God,--those of them, at least, who have
attained to the belief that He is and takes an interest in human affairs. For
they who have not yet attained even to this belief are still at a much lower
level. Cain, then, when he saw that God had respect to his brother's sacrifice,
but not to his own, should have humbly chosen his good brother as his example,
and not proudly counted him his rival. But he was wroth, and his countenance
fell. This angry regret for another person's goodness, even his brother's,
was charged upon him by God as a great sin. And He accused him of it in the
interrogation, "Why are thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen?" For
God saw that he envied his brother, and of this He accused him. For to men,
from whom the heart of their fellow is hid, it might be doubtful and quite
uncertain whether that sadness bewailed his own wickedness by which, as he
had learned, he had displeased God, or his brother's goodness, which had pleased
God, and won His favorable regard to his sacrifice. But God, in giving the
reason why He refused to accept Cain's offering and why Cain should rather
have been displeased at himself than at his brother, shows him that though
he was unjust in "not rightly distinguishing," that is, not rightly
living and being unworthy to have his offering received, he was more unjust
by far in hating his just brother without a cause.

Yet He
does not dismiss him without counsel, holy, just, and good. "Fret
not thyself," He says, "for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou
shall rule over him." Over his brother, does He mean? Most certainly not.
Over what, then, but sin? For He had said, "Thou hast sinned," and
then He added, "Fret not thyself, for to thee shall be its turning, and
thou shall rule over it."(1) And the "turning" of sin to the
man can be understood of his conviction that the guilt of sin can be laid at
no other man's door but his own. For this is the health-giving medicine of
penitence, and the fit plea for pardon; so that, when it is said, "To
thee its turning," we must not supply "shall be," but we must
read, "To thee let its turning be," understanding it as a command,
not as a prediction. For then shall a man rule over his sin when he does not
prefer it to himself and defend it, but subjects it by repentance; otherwise
he that becomes protector of it shall surely become its prisoner. But if we
understand this sin to be that carnal concupiscence of which the apostle says, "The
flesh lusteth against the spirit,"(3) among the fruits of which lust he
names envy, by which assuredly Cain was stung and excited to destroy his brother,
then we may properly supply the words "shall be," and read, "To
thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it." For when the
carnal part which the apostle calls sin, in that place where he says, "It
is not I who do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,"(3) that part which the
philosophers also call vicious, and which ought not to lead the mind, but which
the mind ought to rule and restrain by reason from illicit motions,--when,
then, this part has been moved to perpetrate any wickedness, if it be curbed
and if it obey the word of the apostle, "Yield not your members instruments
of unrighteousness unto sin,"(4) it is turned towards the mind and subdued
and conquered by it, so that reason rules over it as a subject. It was this
which God enjoined on him who was kindled with the fire of envy against his
brother, so that he sought to put out of the way him whom he should have set
as an example. "Fret not thyself," or compose thyself, He says: withhold
thy hand from crime; let not sin reign in your mortal body to fulfill it in
the lusts thereof, nor yield your members instruments of unrighteousness unto
sin. "For to thee shall be its turning," so long as you do not encourage
it by giving it the rein, but bridle it by quenching its fire. "And thou
shall rule over it;" for when it is not allowed any external actings,
it yields itself to the rule of the governing mind and righteous will, and
ceases from even internal motions. There is something similar said in the same
divine book of the woman, when God questioned and judged them after their sin,
and pronounced sentence on them all,--the devil in the form of the serpent,
the woman and her husband in their own persons. For when He had said to her, "I
will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shall thou bring
forth children," then He added, "and thy turning shall be to thy
husband, and he shall rule over thee."(5) What is said to Cain about his
sin, or about the vicious concupiscence of his flesh, is here said of the woman
who had sinned; and we are to understand that the husband is to rule his wife
as the soul rules the flesh. And therefore, says the apostle, "He that
loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh."(6)
This flesh, then, is to be healed, because it belongs to ourselves: is not
to be abandoned to destruction as if it were alien to our nature. But Cain
received that counsel of God in the spirit of one who did not wish to amend.
In fact, the vice of envy grew stronger in him; and, having entrapped his brother,
he slew him. Such was the founder of the earthly city. He was also a figure
of the Jews who slew Christ the Shepherd of the flock of men, prefigured by
Abel the shepherd of sheep: but as this is an allegorical and prophetical matter,
I forbear to explain it now; besides, I remember that I have made some remarks
upon it in writing against Faustus the Manichaean.(7)

CHAP. 8.--WHAT CAIN'S REASON WAS FOR BUILDING A CITY SO EARLY IN THE HlSTORY
OF THE HUMAN RACE.

At present
it is the history which I aim at defending, that Scripture may not be reckoned
incredible when
it
relates that one man built a city at a time
in which there seem to have been but four men upon earth, or rather indeed
but three, after one brother slew the other,--to wit, the first man the father
of all, and Cain himself, and his son Enoch, by whose name the city was itself
called. But they who are moved by this consideration forget to take into account
that the writer of the sacred history does not necessarily mention all the
men who might be alive at that time, but those only whom the scope of his work
required him to name. The design of that writer (who in this matter was the
instrument of the Holy Ghost) was to descend to Abraham through the successions
of ascertained generations propagated from one man, and then to pass from Abraham's
seed to the people of God, in whom, separated as they were from other nations,
was prefigured and predicted all that relates to the city whose reign is eternal,
and to its king and founder Christ, which things were foreseen in the Spirit
as destined to come; yet neither is this object so effected as that nothing
is said of the other society of men which we call the earthly city, but mention
is made of it so far as seemed needful to enhance the glory of the heavenly
city by contrast to its opposite. Accordingly, when the divine Scripture, in
mentioning the number of years which those men lived, concludes its account
of each man of whom it speaks, with the words, "And he begat sons and
daughters, and all his days were so and so, and he died," are we to understand
that, because it does not name those sons and daughters, therefore, during
that long term of years over which one lifetime extended in those early days,
there might not have been born very many men, by whose united numbers not one
but several cities might have been built? But it suited the purpose of God,
by whose inspiration these histories were composed, to arrange and distinguish
from the first these two societies in their several generations,--that on the
one side the generations of men, that is to say, of those who live according
to man, and on the other side the generations of the sons of God, that is to
say, of men living according to God, might be traced down together and yet
apart from one another as far as the deluge, at which point their dissociation
and association are exhibited: their dissociation, inasmuch as the generations
of both lines are recorded in separate tables, the one line descending from
the fratricide Cain, the other from Seth, who had been born to Adam instead
of him whom his brother slew; their association, inasmuch as the good so deteriorated
that the whole race became of such a character that it was swept away by the
deluge, with the exception of one just man, whose name was Noah, and his wife
and three sons and three daughters-in-law, which eight persons were alone deemed
worthy to escape from that desolating visitation which destroyed all men.

Therefore,
although it is written, "And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived
and bare Enoch, and he builded a city and called the name of the city after
the name of his son Enoch,"(1) it does not follow that we are to believe
this to have been his first-born; for we cannot suppose that this is proved
by the expression "he knew his wife," as if then for the first time
he had had intercourse with her. For in the case of Adam, the father of all,
this expression is used not only when Cain, who seems to have been his first-born,
was conceived, but also afterwards the same Scripture says, "Adam knew
Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bare a son, and called his name Seth."(2)
Whence it is obvious that Scripture employs this expression neither always
when a birth is recorded nor then only when the birth of a first-born is mentioned.
Neither is it necessary to suppose that Enoch was Cain's first-born because
he named his city after him, For it is quite possible that though he had other
sons, yet tot some reason the father loved him more than the rest. Judah was
not the first-born, though he gives his name to Judaea and the Jews. But even
though Enoch was the first-born of the city's founder, that is no reason for
supposing that the father named the city after him as soon as he was born;
for at that time he, being but a solitary man, could not have founded a civic
community, which is nothing else than a multitude of men bound together by
some associating tie. But when his family increased to such numbers that he
had quite a population, then it became possible to him both to build a city,
and give it, when founded, the name of his son. For so long was the life of
those antediluvians, that he who lived the shortest time of those whose years
are mentioned in Scripture attained to the age of 753 years.(3) And though
no one attained the age of a thousand years, several exceeded the age of nine
hundred. Who then can doubt that during the lifetime of one man the human race
might be so multiplied that there would be a population to build and occupy
not one but several cities? And this might very readily be conjectured from
the fact that from one man, Abraham, in not much more than four hundred years,
the numbers of the Hebrew race so increased, that in the exodus of that people
from Egypt there are recorded to have been six hundred thousand men capable
of bearing arms,(4) and this over and above the Idumaeans, who, though not
numbered with Israel's descendants, were yet sprung from his brother, also
a grandson of Abraham; and over and above the other nations which were of the
same stock of Abraham, though not through Sarah,--that is, his descendants
by Hagar and Keturah, the Ishmaelites, Midianites, etc.

CHAP. 9.--OF THE LONG LIFE AND GREATER STATURE OF THE ANTEDILUVIANS.

Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain might
have built a city, and that a large one, when it is observed how prolonged
were the lives of men, unless perhaps some sceptic take exception to this very
length of years which our authors ascribe to the antediluvians and deny that
this is credible. And so, too, they do not believe that the size of men's bodies
was larger then than now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil,
asserts the same, when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as
a landmark, and which a strong man of those ancient times snatched up as he
fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it,--

"Scarce
twelve strong men of later mould

That weight
could on their necks uphold."(1)

thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men. And
if in the more recent times, how much more in the ages before the world-renowned
deluge? But the large size of the primitive human body is often proved to the
incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either through the wear of time
or the violence of torrents or some accident, and in which bones of incredible
size have been found or have rolled out. I myself, along with some others,
saw on the shore at Utica a man's molar tooth of such a size, that if it were
cut down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I fancy, could have been made
out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some giant. For though the bodies
of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in stature.
And neither in our own age nor any other have there been altogether wanting
instances of gigantic stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a
most learned man, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller will
be the bodies of men.(2) And he mentions that Homer in his poems often lamented
the same decline; and this he does not laugh at as a poetical figment, but
in his character of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically
true. But, as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered prove
the size of the bodies of the ancients,(3) and will do so to future ages, for
they are slow to decay. But the length of an antediluvian's life cannot now
be proved by any such monumental evidence. But we are not on this account to
withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose statements of past fact we
are the more inexcusable in discrediting, as we see the accuracy of its prediction
of what was future. And even that same Pliny(4) tells us that there is still
a nation in which men live 200 years. If, then, in places unknown to us, men
are believed to have a length of days which is quite beyond our own experience,
why should we not believe the same of times distant from our own? Or are we
to believe that in other places there is what is not here, while we do not
believe that in other times there has been anything but what is now?

CHAP. 10.--OF THE DIFFERENT COMPUTATION OF THE AGES OF THE ANTEDILUVIANS,
GIVEN BY THE HEBREW MANUSCRIPTS AND BY OUR OWN.(5)

Wherefore, although there is a discrepancy for which I cannot account between
our manuscripts and the Hebrew, in the very number of years assigned to the
antediluvians, yet the discrepancy is not so great that they do not agree about
their longevity. For the very first man, Adam, before he begot his son Seth,
is in our manuscripts found to have lived 230 years, but in the Hebrew mss.
130. But after he begot Seth, our copies read that he lived 700 years, while
the Hebrew give 800. And thus, when the two periods are taken together, the
sum agrees. And so throughout the succeeding generations, the period before
the father begets a son is always made shorter by 100 years in the Hebrew,
but the period after his son is begotten is longer by 100 years in the Hebrew
than in our copies. And thus, taking the two periods together, the result is
the same in both. And in the sixth generation there is no discrepancy at all.
In the seventh, however, of which Enoch is the representative, who is recorded
to have been translated without death because he pleased God, there is the
same discrepancy as in the first five generations, 100 years more being ascribed
to him by our mss. before he begat a son. But still the result agrees; for
according to both documents he lived before he was translated 365 years. In
the eighth generation the discrepancy is less than in the others, and of a
different kind. For Methuselah, whom Enoch begat, lived, before he begat his
successor, not 100 years less, but 100 years more, according to the Hebrew
reading; and in our MSS. again these years are added to the period after he
begat his son; so that in this case also the sum-total is the same. And it
is only in the ninth generation, that is, in the age of Lamech, Methuselah's
son and Noah's father, that there is a discrepancy in the sum total; and even
in this case it is slight. For the Hebrew MSS. represent him as living twenty-four
years more than ours assign to him. For before he begat his son, who was called
Noah, six years fewer are given to him by the Hebrew MSS. than by ours; but
after he begat this son, they give him thirty years more than ours; so that,
deducting the former six, there remains, as we said, a surplus of twenty-four.

CHAP. 11.--OF METHUSELAH'S AGE, WHICH SEEMS TO EXTEND FOURTEEN YEARS BEYOND
THE DELUGE.

From this discrepancy between the Hebrew books and our own arises the well-known
question as to the age of Methuselah;(1) for it is computed that he lived for
fourteen years after the deluge, though Scripture relates that of all who were
then upon the earth only the eight souls in the ark escaped destruction by
the flood, and of these Methuselah was not one. For, according to our books,
Methuselah, before he begat the son whom he called Lamech, lived 167 years;
then Lamech himself, before his son Noah was born, lived 188 years, which together
make 355 years. Add to these the age of Noah at the date of the deluge, 600
years, and this gives a total of 955 from the birth of Methuselah to the year
of the flood. Now all the years of the life of Methuselah are computed to be
969; for when he had lived 167 years, and had begotten his son Lamech, he then
lived after this 802 years, which makes a total, as we said, of 969 years.
From this, if we deduct 955 years from the birth of Methuselah to the flood,
there remains fourteen years, which he is supposed to have lived after the
flood. And therefore some suppose that, though he was not on earth (in which
it is agreed that every living thing which could not naturally live in water
perished), he was for a time with his father, who had been translated, and
that he lived there till the flood had passed away. This hypothesis they adopt,
that they may not cast a slight on the trustworthiness of versions which the
Church has received into a position of high authority,(2) and because they
believe that the Jewish MSS. rather than our own are in error. For they do
not admit that this is a mistake of the translators, but maintain that there
is a falsified statement in the original, from which, through the Greek, the
Scripture has been translated into our own tongue. They say that it is not
credible that the seventy translators, who simultaneously and unanimously produced
one rendering, could have erred, or, in a case in which no interest of theirs
was involved, could have falsified their translation; but that the Jews, envying
us our translation of their Law and Prophets, have made alterations in their
texts so as to undermine the authority of ours. This opinion or suspicion let
each man adopt according to his own judgment. Certain it is that Methuselah
did not survive the flood, but died in the very year it occurred, if the numbers
given in the Hebrew MSS. are true. My own opinion regarding the seventy translators
I will, with God's help, state more carefully in its own place, when I have
come down (following the order which this work requires) to that period in
which their translation was executed.(3) For the present question, it is enough
that, according to our versions, the men of that age had lives so long as to
make it quite possible that, during the lifetime of the first-born of the two
sole parents then on earth, the human race multiplied sufficiently to form
a community.

CHAP. 12.--OF THE OPINION OF THOSE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE THAT IN THESE PRIMITIVE,
TIMES MEN LIVED SO LONG AS IS STATED.

For they
are by no means to be listened to who suppose that in those times years were
differently
reckoned,
and were so short that one of our years may
be supposed to be equal to ten of theirs. So that they say, when we read or
hear that some man lived 900 years, we should understand ninety, ten of those
years making but one of ours, and ten of ours equalling 100 of theirs. Consequently,
as they suppose, Adam was twenty-three years of age when he begat Seth, and
Seth himself was twenty years and six months old when his son Enos was born,
though the Scripture calls these months 205 years. For, on the hypothesis of
those whose opinion we are explaining, it was customary to divide one such
year as we have into ten parts, and to call each part a year. And each of these
parts was composed of six days squared; because God finished His works in six
days, that He might rest the seventh. Of this I disputed according to my ability
in the eleventh book.(4) Now six squared, or six times six, gives thirty-six
days; and this multiplied by ten amounts to 360 days, or twelve. lunar months.
As for the five remaining days which are needed to complete the solar year,
and for the fourth part of a day, which requires that into every fourth or
leap-year a day be added, the ancients added such days as the Romans used to
call "intercalary," in order to complete the number of the years.
So that Enos, Seth's son, was nineteen years old when his son Cainan was born,
though Scripture calls these years 190. And so through all the generations
in which the ages of the antediluvians are given, we find in our versions that
almost no one begat a son at the age of 100 or under/or even at the age of
120 or thereabouts; but the youngest fathers are recorded to have been 160
years old and upwards. And the reason of this, they say, is that no one can
beget children when he is ten years old, the age spoken of by those men as
100, but that sixteen is the age of puberty, and competent now to propagate
offspring; and this is the age called by them 160. And that it may not be thought
incredible that in these days the year was differently computed from our own,
they adduce what is recorded by several writers of history, that the Egyptians
had a year of four months, the Acarnanians of six, and the Lavinians of thirteen
months.(1) The younger Pliny, after mentioning that some writers reported that
one man had lived 152 years, another ten more, others 200, others 300, that
some had even reached 500 and 600, and a few 800 years of age, gave it as his
opinion that all this must be ascribed to mistaken computation. For some, he
says, make summer and winter each a year; others make each season a year, like
the Arcadians, whose years, he says, were of three months. He added, too, that
the Egyptians, of whose little years of four months we have spoken already,
sometimes terminated their year at the wane of each moon; so that with them
there are produced lifetimes of 1000 years.

By these plausible arguments certain persons, with no desire to weaken the
credit of this sacred history, but rather to facilitate belief in it by removing
the difficulty of such incredible longevity, have been themselves persuaded,
and think they act wisely in persuading others, that in these days the year
was so brief that ten of their years equal but one of ours, while ten of ours
equal 100 of theirs. But there is the plainest evidence to show that this is
quite false. Before producing this evidence, however, it seems right to mention
a conjecture which is yet more plausible. From the Hebrew manuscripts we could
at once refute this confident statement; for in them Adam is found to have
lived not 230 but 130 years before he begat his third son. If, then, this mean
thirteen years by our ordinary computation, then he must have begotten his
first son when he was only twelve or thereabouts. Who can at this age beget
children according to the ordinary and familiar course of nature? But not to
mention him, since it is possible he may have been able to beget his like as
soon as he was created,--for tt is not credible that he was created so little
as our infants are,--not to mention him, his son was not 205 years old when
he begot Enos, as our versions have it, but 105, and consequently, according
to this idea, was not eleven years old. But what shall I say of his son Cainan,
who, though by our version 170 years old, was by the Hebrew text seventy when
he beget Mahalaleel? If seventy years in those times meant only seven of our
years, what man of seven years old begets children?

CHAP. 13.--WHETHER, IN COMPUTING YEARS, WE OUGHT TO FOLLOW THE HEBREW OR THE
SEPTUAGINT.

But if I say this, I shall presently be answered, It is one of the Jews' lies.
This, however, we have disposed of above, showing that it cannot be that men
of so just a reputation as the seventy translators should have falsified their
version. However, if I ask them which of the two is more credible, that the
Jewish nation, scattered far and wide, could have unanimously conspired to
forge this lie, and so, through envying others the authority of their Scriptures,
have deprived themselves of their verity; or that seventy men, who were also
themselves Jews, shut up in one place (for Ptolemy king of Egypt had got them
together for this work), should have envied foreign nations that same truth,
and by common consent inserted these errors: who does not see which can be
more naturally and readily believed? But far be it from any prudent man to
believe either that the Jews, however malicious and wrong-headed, could have
tampered with so many and so widely-dispersed manuscripts; or that those renowned
seventy individuals had any common purpose to grudge the truth to the nations.
One must therefore more plausibly maintain, that when first their labors began
to be transcribed from the copy in Ptolemy's library, some such misstatement
might find its way into the first copy made, and from it might be disseminated
far and wide; and that this might arise from no fraud, but from a mere copyist's
error. This is a sufficiently plausible account of the difficulty regarding
Methuselah's life, and of that other case in which there is a difference in
the total of twenty-four years. But in those cases in which there is a methodical
resemblance in the falsification, so that uniformly the one version allots
to the period before a son and successor is born 100 years more than the other,
and to the period subsequent 100 years less, and vice versa, so that the totals
may agree,--and this holds true of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth,
and seventh generations,--in these cases error seems to have, if we may say
so, a certain kind of constancy, and savors not of accident, but of design.

Accordingly, that diversity of numbers which distinguishes the Hebrew from
the Greek and Latin copies of Scripture, and which consists of a uniform addition
and deduction of 100 years in each lifetime for several consecutive generations,
is to be attributed neither to the malice of the Jews nor to men so diligent
and prudent as the seventy translators, but to the error of the copyist who
was first allowed to transcribe the manuscript from the library of the above-mentioned
king. For even now, in cases where numbers contribute nothing to the easier
comprehension or more satisfactory knowledge of anything, they are both carelessly
transcribed, and still more carelessly emended. For who will trouble himself
to learn how many thousand men the several tribes of Israel contained? He sees
no resulting benefit of such knowledge. Or how many men are there who are aware
of the vast advantage that lies hid in this knowledge? But in this case, in
which during so many consecutive generations 100 years are added in one manuscript
where they are not reckoned in the other, and then, after the birth of the
son and successor, the years which were wanting are added, it is obvious that
the copyist who contrived this arrangement designed to insinuate that the antediluvians
lived an excessive number of years only because each year was excessively brief,
and that he tried to draw the attention to this fact by his statement of their
age of puberty at which they became able to beget children. For, lest the incredulous
might stumble at the difficulty of so long a lifetime, he insinuated that Too
of their years equalled but ten of ours; and this insinuation he conveyed by
adding 100 years whenever he found the age below 160 years or thereabouts,
deducting these years again from the period after the son's birth, that tim
total might harmonize. By this means he intended to ascribe the generation
of offspring to a fit age, without diminishing the total sum of years ascribed
to the lifetime of the individuals. And the very fact that in the sixth generation
he departed from this uniform practice, inclines us all the rather to believe
that when the circumstance we have referred to required his alterations, he
made them; seeing that when this circumstance did not exist, he made no alteration.
For in the same generation he found in the Hebrew MS., that Jared lived before
he begat Enoch 162 years, which, according to the short year computation, is
sixteen years and somewhat less than two months, an age capable of procreation;
and therefore it was not necessary to add 100 short years, and so make the
age twenty-six years of the usual length; and of course it was not necessary
to deduct, after the son's birth, years which he had not added before it. And
thus it comes to pass that in this instance there is no variation between the
two manuscripts.

This is corroborated still further by the fact that in the eighth generation,
while the Hebrew books assign 182(1) years to Methuselah before Lamech's birth,
ours assign to him twenty less, though usually 100 years are added to this
period; then, after Lamech's birth, the twenty years are restored, so as to
equalize the total in the two books. For if his design was that these 170 years
be understood as seventeen, so as to suit the age of puberty, as there was
no need for him adding anything, so there was none for his subtracting anything;
for in this case he found an age fit for the generation of children, for the
sake. of which he was in the habit of adding those 100 years m cases where
he did not find the age already sufficient. This difference of twenty years
we might, indeed, have supposed had happened accidentally, had he not taken
care to restore them afterwards as he had deducted them from the period before,
so that there might be no deficiency in the total. Or are we perhaps to suppose
that there was the still more astute design of concealing the deliberate and
uniform addition of 100 years to the first period and their deduction from
the subsequent period--did he design to conceal this by doing something similar,
that is to say, adding and deducting, not indeed a century, but some years,
even in a case in which there was no need for his doing so? But whatever may
be thought of this, whether it be believed that he did so or not, whether,
in fine, it be so or not, I would have no manner of doubt that when any diversity
is found in the books, since both cannot be true to fact, we do well to believe
in preference that language out of which the translation was made into another
by translators. For there are three Greek Mss., one Latin, and one Syriac,
which agree with one another, and in all of these Methuselah is said to have
died six years before the deluge.

CHAP. 14.--THAT THE YEARS IN THOSE ANCIENT TIMES WERE OF THE SAME LENGTH AS
OUR OWN.

Let us
now see how it can be plainly made out that in the enormously protracted
lives of those
men the years were
not so short that ten of their years were
equal to only one of ours, but were of as great length as our own, which are
measured by the course of the sun. It is proved by this, that Scripture states
that the flood occurred in the six hundredth year of Noah's life. But why in
the same place is it also written, "The waters of the flood were upon
the earth in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the
twenty-seventh day of the month,"(1) if that very brief year (of which
it took ten to make one of ours) consisted of thirty-six days? For so scant
a year, if the ancient usage dignified it with the name of year, either has
not months, or this month must be three days, so that it may have twelve of
them. How then was it here said, "In the six hundredth year, the second
month, the twenty-seventh day of the month," unless the months then were
of the same length as the months now? For how else could it be said that the
flood began on the twenty-seventh day of the second month? Then afterwards,
at the end of the flood, it is thus written: "And the ark rested in the
seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of
Ararat. And the waters decreased continually until the eleventh month: on the
first day of the month were the tops of the mountains seen."(2) But if
the months were such as we have, then so were the years. And certainly months
of three days each could not have a twenty-seventh day. Or if every measure
of time was diminished in proportion, and a thirtieth part of three days was
then called a day, then that great deluge, which is recorded to have lasted
forty clays and forty nights, was really over in less than four of our days.
Who can away with such foolishness and absurdity? Far be this error from us,--an
error which seeks to build up our fifth in the divine Scriptures on false conjecture
only to demolish our faith at another point. It is plain that the day then
was what it now is, a space of four-and-twenty hours, determined by the lapse
of day and night; the month then equal to the month now, which is defined by
the rise and completion of one moon; the year then equal to the year now, which
is completed by twelve lunar months, with the addition of five days and a fourth
to adjust it with the course of the sun. It was a year of this length which
was reckoned the six hundredth of Noah's life, and in the second month, the
twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began,--a flood which, as is recorded,
was caused by heavy rains continuing for forty days, which days had not only
two hours and a little more, but four, and-twenty hours, completing a night
and a day. And consequently those antediluvians lived more than 900 years,
which were years as long as those which afterwards Abraham lived 175 of, and
after him his son Isaac 180, and his son Jacob nearly 150, and some time after,
Moses 120, and men now seventy or eighty, or not much longer, of which years
it is said, "their strength is labor and sorrow."(3)

But that discrepancy of numbers which is found to exist between our own and
the Hebrew text does not touch the longevity of the ancients; and if there
is any diversity so great that both versions cannot be true, we must take our
ideas of the real facts from that text out of which our own version has been
translated. However, though any one who pleases has it in his power to correct
this version, yet it is not unimportant to observe that no one has presumed
to emend the Septuagint from the Hebrew text in the many places where they
seem to disagree. For this difference has not been reckoned a falsification;
and for my own part I am persuaded it ought not to be reckoned so. But where
the difference is not a mere copyist's error, and where the sense is agreeable
to truth and illustrative of truth, we must believe that the divine Spirit
prompted them to give a varying version, not in their function of translators,
but in the liberty of prophesying. And therefore we find that the apostles
justly sanction the Septuagint, by quoting it as well as the Hebrew when they
adduce proofs from the Scriptures. But as I have promised to treat this subject
more carefully, if God help me, in a more fitting place, I will now go on with
the matter in hand. For there can be no doubt that, the lives of men being
so long, the first-born of the first man could have built a city,--a city,
however, which was earthly, and not that which is called the city of God, to
describe which we have taken in hand this great work.

CHAP. 15.--WHETHER IT IS CREDIBLE THAT THE MEN OF THE PRIMITIVE AGE ABSTAINED
FROM SEXUAL INTERCOURSE UNTIL THAT DATE AT WHICH IT IS RECORDED THAT THEY BEGAT
CHILDREN.

Some one,
then, will say, Is it to be believe that a man who intended to beget children,
and had no
intention
of continence, abstained from sexual intercourse
a hundred years and more, or even, according to the Hebrew version, only a
little less, say eighty, seventy, or sixty years; or, if he did not abstain,
was unable to beget offspring? This question admits of two solutions. For either
puberty was so much later as the whole life was longer, or, which seems to
me more likely, it is not the first-born sons that are here mentioned, but
those whose names were required to fill up the series until Noah was reached,
from whom again we see that the succession is continued to Abraham, and after
him down to that point of time until which it was needful to mark by pedigree
the course of the most glorious city, which sojourns as a stranger in this
world, and seeks the heavenly country. That which is undeniable is that Cain
was the first who was born of man and woman. For had he not been the first
who was added by birth to the two unborn persons, Adam could not have said
what he is recorded to have said, "I have gotten a man by the Lord."(1)
He was followed by Abel, whom the eider brother slew, and who was the first
to show by a kind of foreshadowing of the sojourning city of God, what iniquitous
persecutions that city would suffer at the hands of wicked and, as it were,
earth-born men, who love their earthly origin, and delight in the earthly happiness
of the earthly city. But how old Adam was when he begat these sons does not
appear. After this the generations diverge, the one branch deriving from Cain,
the other from him whom Adam begot in the room of Abel slain by his brother,
and whom he called Seth, saying, as it is written, "For God hath raised
me up another seed for Abel whom Cain slew."(2) These two series of generations
accordingly, the one of Cain, the other of Seth, represent the two cities in
their distinctive ranks, the one the heavenly city, which sojourns on earth,
the other the earthly, which gapes after earthly joys, and grovels in them
as if they were the only joys. But though eight generations, including Adam,
are registered before the flood, no man of Cain's line has his age recorded
at which the son who succeeded him was begotten. For the Spirit of God refused
to mark the times before the flood in the generations of the earthly city,
but preferred to do so in the heavenly line, as if it were more worthy of being
remembered. Further, when Seth was born, the age of his father is mentioned;
but already he had begotten other sons, and who will presume to say that Cain
and Abel were the only ones previously begotten? For it does not follow that
they alone had been begotten of Adam, because they alone were named in order
to continue the series of generations which it was desirable to mention. For
though the names of all the rest are buried in silence, yet it is said that
Adam begot sons and daughters; and who that cares to be free from the charge
of temerity will dare to say how many his offspring numbered? It was possible
enough that Adam was divinely prompted to say, after Seth was born, "For
God hath raised up to me another seed for Abel," because that son was
to be capable of representing Abel's holiness, not because he was born first
after him in point of time. Then because it is written, "And Seth lived
205 years," or, according to the Hebrew reading, "105 years, and
begat Enos,"(3) who but a rash man could affirm that this was his first-born?
Will any man do so to excite our wonder, and cause us to inquire how for so
many years he remained free from sexual intercourse, though without any purpose
of continuing so, or how, if he did not abstain, he yet had no children? Will
any man do so when it is written of him, "And he begat sons and daughters,
and all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died?"(4) And similarly
regarding those whose years are afterwards mentioned, it is not disguised that
they begat sons and daughters.

Consequently it does not at all appear whether he who is named as the son
was himself the first begotten. Nay, since it is incredible that those fathers
were either so long in attaining puberty, or could not get wives, or could
not impregnate them, it is also incredible that those sons were their first-born.
But as the writer of the sacred history designed to descend by well-marked
intervals through a series of generations to the birth and life of Noah, in
whose time the flood occurred, he mentioned not those sons who were first begotten,
but those by whom the succession was handed down.

Let me
make this clearer by here inserting an example, in regard to which no one
can have any doubt
that what
I am asserting is true. The evangelist
Matthew, where he designs to commit to our memories the generation of the Lord's
flesh by a series of parents, beginning from Abraham and intending to reach
David, says, "Abraham begat Isaac;"(1) why did he not say Ishmael,
whom he first begat? Then "Isaac begat Jacob;" why did he not say
Esau, who was the first-born? Simply because these sons would not have helped
him to reach David. Then follows, "And Jacob begat Judah and his brethren:" was
Judah the first begotten? "Judah," he says, "begat Pharez and
Zara;" yet neither were these twins the first-born of Judah, but before
them he had begotten three other sons. And so in the order of the generations
he retained those by whom he might reach David, so as to proceed onwards to
the end he had in view. And from this we may understand that the antediluvians
who are mentioned were not the first-born, but those through whom the order
of the succeeding generations might be carried on to the patriarch Noah. We
need not, therefore, weary ourselves with discussing the needless and obscure
question as to their lateness of reaching puberty.

CHAP. 16.--OF MARRIAGE BETWEEN BLOOD-RELATIONS, IN REGARD TO WHICH THE PRESENT
LAW COULD NOT BIND THE MEN OF THE EARLIEST AGES.

As, therefore,
the human race, subsequently to the first marriage of the man who was made
of dust,
and his
wife who was made out of his side, required the
union of males and females in order that it might multiply, and as there were
no human beings except those who had been born of these two, men took their
sisters for wives,--an act which was as certainly dictated by necessity in
these ancient days as afterwards it was condemned by the prohibitions of religion.
For it is very reasonable and just that men, among whom concord is honorable
and useful, should be bound together by various relationships; and one man
should not himself sustain many relationships, but that the various relationships
should be distributed among several, and should thus serve to bind together
the greatest number in the same social interests. "Father" and "father-in-law" are
the names of two relationships. When, therefore, a man has one person for his
father, another for his father-in-law, friendship extends itself to a larger
number. But Adam in his single person was obliged to hold both relations to
his sons and daughters, for brothers and sisters were united in marriage. So
too Eve his wife was both mother and mother-in-law to her children of both
sexes; while, had there been two women, one the mother, the other the mother-in-law,
the family affection would have had a wider field. Then the sister herself
by becoming a wife sustained in her single person two relationships, which,
had they been distributed among individuals, one being sister, and another
being wife, the family tie would have embraced a greater number of persons.
But there was then no material for effecting this, since there were no human
beings but the brothers and sisters born of those two first parents. Therefore,
when an abundant population made it possible, men ought to choose for wives
women who were not already their sisters; for not only would there then be
no necessity for marrying sisters, but, were it done; it would be most abominable.
For if the grandchildren of the first pair, being now able to choose their
cousins for wives, married their sisters, then it would no longer be only two
but three relationships that were held by one man, while each of these relationships
ought to have been held by a separate individual, so as to bind together by
family affection a larger number. For one man would in that case be both father,
and father-in-law, and uncle(2) to his own children (brother and sister now
man and wife); and his wife would be mother, aunt, and mother-in-law to them;
and they themselves would be not only brother and sister, and man and wife,
but cousins also, being the children of brother and sister. Now, all these
relationships, which combined three men into one, would have embraced nine
persons had each relationship been held by one individual, so that a man had
one person for his sister, another his wife, another his cousin, another his
father, another his uncle, another his father-in-law, another his mother, another
his aunt, another his mother-in-law; and thus the social bond would not have
been tightened to bind a few, but loosened to embrace a larger number of relations.

And we see that, since the human race has increased and multiplied, this is
so strictly observed even among the profane worshippers of many and false gods,
that though their laws perversely allow a brother to marry his sister,(3) yet
custom, with a finer morality, prefers to forego this license; and though it
was quite allowable in the earliest ages of the human race to marry one's sister,
it is now abhorred as a thing which no circumstances could justify. For custom
has very great power either to attract or to shock human feeling. And in this
matter, while it restrains concupiscence within due bounds, the man who neglects
and disobeys it is justly branded as abominable. For if it is iniquitous to
plough beyond our own boundaries through the greed of gain, is it not much
more iniquitous to transgress the recognized boundaries of morals through sexual
lust? And with regard to marriage in the next degree of consanguinity, marriage
between cousins, we have observed that in our own time the customary morality
has prevented this from being frequent, though the law allows it. It was not
prohibited by divine law, nor as yet had human law prohibited it; nevertheless,
though legitimate, people shrank from it, because it lay so close to what was
illegitimate, and in marrying a cousin seemed almost to marry a sister,--for
cousins are so closely related that they are called brothers and sisters,'
and are almost really so. But the ancient fathers, fearing that near relationship
might gradually in the course of generations diverge, and become distant relationship,
or cease to be relationship at all, religiously endeavored to limit it by the
bond of marriage before it became distant, and thus, as it were, to call it
back when it was escaping them. And on this account, even when the world was
full of people, though they did not choose wives from among their sisters or
half-sisters, yet they preferred them to be of the same stock as themselves.
But who doubts that the modern prohibition of the marriage even of cousins
is the more seemly regulation--not merely on account of the reason we have
been urging, the multiplying of relationships, so that one person might not
absorb two, which might be distributed to two persons, and so increase the
number of people bound together as a family, but also because there is in human
nature I know not what natural and praiseworthy shamefacedness which restrains
us from desiring that connection which, though for propagation, is yet lustful
and which even conjugal modesty blushes over, with any one to whom consanguinity
bids us render respect?

The sexual intercourse of man and woman, then, is in the case of mortals a
kind of seed-bed of the city; but while the earthly city needs for its population
only generation, the heavenly needs also regeneration to rid it of the taint
of generation. Whether before the deluge there was any bodily or visible sign
of regeneration, such as was afterwards enjoined upon Abraham when he was circumcised,
or what kind of sign it was, the sacred history does not inform us. But it
does inform us that even these earliest of mankind sacrificed to God, as appeared
also in the case of the two first brothers; Noah, too, is said to have offered
sacrifices to God when he had come forth from the ark after the deluge. And
concerning this subject we have already said in the foregoing books that the
devils arrogate to themselves divinity, and require sacrifice that they may
be esteemed gods, and delight in these honors on no other account than this,
because they know that true sacrifice is due to the true God.

CHAP. 17.--OF THE TWO FATHERS AND LEADERS WHO SPRANG FROM ONE PROGENITOR.

Since,
then, Adam was the father of both lines,--the father, that is to say, both
of the line which
belonged
to the earthly, and of that which belonged
to the heavenly city,--when Abel was slain, and by his death exhibited a marvellous
mystery, there were henceforth two lines proceeding from two fathers, Cain
and Seth, and in those sons of theirs, whom it behoved to register, the tokens
of these two cities began to appear more distinctly. For Cain begat Enoch,
in whose name he built a city, an earthly one, which was not from home in this
world, but rested satisfied with its temporal peace and happiness. Cain, too,
means "possession;" wherefore at his birth either his father or mother
said," I have gotten a man through God." Then Enoch means "dedication;" for
the earthly city is dedicated in this world in which it is built, for in this
world it finds the end towards which it aims and aspires. Further, Seth signifies" resurrection," and
Enos his son signifies "man," not as Adam, which also signifies man,
but is used in Hebrew indifferently for man and woman, as it is written, "Male
and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam,"(2)
leaving no room to doubt that though the woman was distinctively called Eve,
yet the name Adam, meaning man, was common to both. But Enos means man in so
restricted a sense, that Hebrew linguists tell us it cannot be applied to woman:
it is the equivalent of the "child of the resurrection," when they,
neither marry nor are given in marriage.(3) For there shall be no generation
in that place to which regeneration shall have brought us. Wherefore I think
it not immaterial to observe that in those generations which are propagated
from him who is called Seth, although daughters as well as sons are said to
have been begotten, no woman is expressly registered by name; but in those
which sprang from Cain at the very termination to which the line runs, the
last person named as begotten is a woman. For we read, "Methusael begat
Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and
the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of the
shepherds that dwell in tents. And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the
father of all such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also bare
Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister
of Tubal-cain was Naamah."(1) Here terminate all the generations of Cain,
being eight in number, including Adam,--to wit, seven from Adam to Lamech,
who married two wives, and whose children, among whom a woman also is named,
form the eighth generation. Whereby it is elegantly signified that the earthly
city shall to its termination have carnal generations proceeding from the intercourse
of males and females. And therefore tile wives themselves of the man who is
the last named father of Cain's line, are registered in their own names,--a
practice nowhere followed before the deluge save in Eve's case. Now as Cain,
signifying possession, the founder of the earthly city, and his son Enoch,
meaning dedication, in whose name it was founded, indicate that this city is
earthly both in its beginning and in its end,--a city in which nothing more
is hoped for than can be seen in this world,--so Seth, meaning resurrection,
and being the father of generations registered apart from the others, we must
consider what this sacred history says of his son.

CHAP. 18.--THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ABEL, SETH, AND ENOS TO CHRIST AND HIS BODY
THE CHURCH.

"And to Seth," it is said, "there was born a son, and he called
his name Enos: he hoped to call on the name of the Lord God."(2) Here
we have a loud testimony to the truth. Man, then, the son of the resurrection,
lives in hope: he lives in hope as long as the city of God, which is begotten
by faith in the resurrection, sojourns in this world. For in these two men,
Abel, signifying "grief," and his brother Seth, signifying "resurrection," the
death of Christ and His life from the dead are prefigured. And by faith in
these is begotten in this world the city of God, that is to say, the man who
has hoped to call on the name of the Lord. "For by hope," says the
apostle, "we are saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a
man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then
do we with patience wait for it."(3) Who can avoid referring this to a
profound mystery? For did not Abel hope to call upon the name of the Lord God
when his sacrifice is mentioned in Scripture as having been accepted by God?
Did not Seth himself hope to call on the name of the Lord God, of whom it was
said, "For God hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel?" Why
then is this which is found to be common to all the godly specially attributed
to Enos, unless because it was fit that in him, who is mentioned as the first-born
of the father of those generations which were separated to the better part
of the heavenly city, there should be a type of the man, or society of men,
who live not according to man in contentment with earthly felicity, but according
to God in hope of everlasting, felicity? And it, was not said, "He hoped
in the Lord God," nor He called on the name of the Lord God," but" He
hoped to call on the name of the Lord God." And what does this "hoped
to call" mean, unless it is a prophecy that a people should arise who,
according to the election of grace, would call on the name of the Lord God?
It is this which has been said by another prophet, and which the apostle interprets
of the people who belong to the grace of God: "And it shall be that whosoever
shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."(4) For these two
expressions, "And he called his name Enos, which means man," and "He
hoped to call on the name of the Lord God," are sufficient proof that
man ought not to rest his hopes in himself; as it is elsewhere written, "Cursed
is the man that trusteth in man."(5) Consequently no one ought to trust
in himself that he shall become a citizen of that other city which is not dedicated
in the name of Cain's son in this present time, that is to say, in the fleeting
course of this mortal world, but in the immortality of perpetual blessedness.

CHAP. 19.--THE SIGNIFICANCE OP ENOCH'S TRANSLATION.

For that
line also of which Seth is the father has the name "Dedication" in
the seventh generation from Adam, counting Adam. For the seventh from him is
Enoch, that is, Dedication. But this is that man who was translated because
he pleased God, and who held in the order of the generations a remarkable place,
being the seventh from Adam, a number signalized by the consecration of the
Sabbath. But, counting from the diverging point of the two lines, or from Seth,
he was the sixth Now it was on the sixth day God made man, and consummated
His works. But the translation of Enoch prefigured our deferred dedication;
for though it is indeed already accomplished in Christ our Head, who so rose
again that He shall die no more, and who was Himself also translated, yet there
remains another dedication of the whole house, of which Christ Himself is the
foundation, and this dedication is deferred till the end, when all shall rise
again to die no more. And whether it is the house of God, or the temple of
God, or the city of God, that is said to be dedicated, it is all the same,
and equally in accordance With the usage of the Latin language. For Virgil
himself calls the city of widest empire "the house of Assaracus,"(1)
meaning the Romans, who were descended through the Trojans from Assaracus.
He also calls them the house of AEneas, because Rome was built by those Trojans
who had come to Italy under AEneas.(2) For that poet imitated the sacred writings,
in which the Hebrew nation, though so numerous, is called the house of Jacob.

CHAP. 20.--HOW IT IS THAT CAIN'S LINE TERMINATES IN THE EIGHTH GENERATION,
WHILE NOAH, THOUGH DESCENDED FROM THE SAME FATHER, ADAM, IS FOUND TO BE THE
TENTH FROM HIM.

Some one
will say, If the writer of this history intended, in enumerating the generations
from
Adam through
his son Seth, to descend through them to
Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred, and from him again to trace the connected
generations down to Abraham, with whom Matthew begins the pedigree of Christ
the eternal King of the city of God, what did he intend by enumerating the
generations from Cain, and to what terminus did he mean to trace them? We reply,
To the deluge, by which the whole stock of the earthly city was destroyed,
but repaired by the sons of Noah. For the earthly city and community of men
who live after the flesh will never fail until the end of this world, of which
our Lord says, "The children of this world generate, and are generated."(3)
But the city of God, which sojourns in this world, is conducted by regeneration
to the world to come, of which the children neither generate nor are generated.
In this world generation is common to both cities; though even now the city
of God has many thousand citizens who abstain from the act of generation; yet
the other city also has some citizens who imitate these, though erroneously.
For to that city belong also those who have erred from the faith, and introduced
divers heresies; for they live according to man, not according to God. And
the Indian gymnosophists, who are said to philosophize in the solitudes of
India in a state of nudity, are its citizens; and they abstain from marriage.
For continence is not a good thing, except when it is practised in the faith
of the highest good, that is, God. Yet no one is found to have practised it
before the deluge; for indeed even Enoch himself, the seventh from Adam, who
is said to have been translated without dying, begat sons and daughters before
he was translated, and among these was Methuselah, by whom the succession of
the recorded generations is maintained.

Why, then,
is so small a number of Cain's generations registered, if it was proper to
trace them
to the deluge,
and if there was no such delay of the date
of puberty as to preclude the hope of offspring for a hundred or more years?
For if the author of this book had not in view some one to whom he might rigidly
trace the series of generations, as he designed in those which sprang from
Seth's seed to descend to Noah, and thence to start again by a rigid order,
what need was there of omitting the first-born sons for the sake of descending
to Lamech, in whose sons that line terminates,--that is to say, in the eighth
generation from Adam, or the seventh from Cain,--as if from this point he had
wished to pass on to another series, by which he might reach either the Israelitish
people, among whom the earthly Jerusalem presented a prophetic figure of the
heavenly city, or to Jesus Christ, "according to the flesh, who is over
all, God blessed for ever,"(4) the Maker and Ruler of the heavenly city?
What, I say, was the need of this, seeing that the whole of Cain's posterity
were destroyed in the deluge? From this it is manifest that they are the first-born
sons who are registered in this genealogy. Why, then, are there so few of them?
Their numbers in the period before the deluge must have been greater, if the
date of puberty bore no proportion to their longevity, and they had children
before they were a hundred years old. For supposing they were on an average
thirty years old when they began to beget children, then, as there are eight
generations, including Adam and Lamech's children, 8 times 30 gives 240 years;
did they then produce no more children in all the rest of the time before the
deluge? With what intention, then, did he who wrote this record make no mention
of subsequent generations? For from Adam to the deluge there are reckoned,
according to our copies of Scripture, 2262 years,(5) and according to the Hebrew
text, 1656 years. Supposing, then, the smaller number to be the true one, and
subtracting from 1656 years 240, is it credible that during the remaining 1400
and odd years until the deluge the posterity of Cain begat no children?

But let any one who is moved by this call to mind that when I discussed the
question, how it is credible that those primitive men could abstain for so
many years from begetting children, two modes of solution were found,--either
a puberty late in proportion to their longevity, or that the sons registered
in the genealogies were not the first-born, but those through whom the author
of the book intended to reach the point aimed at, as he intended to reach Noah
by the generations of Seth. So that, if in the generations of Cain there occurs
no one whom the writer could make it his object to reach by omitting the first-born
and inserting those who would serve such a purpose, then we must have recourse
to the supposition of late puberty, and say that only at some age beyond a
hundred years they became capable of besetting children, so that the order
of the generations ran through the first-born, and filled up even the whole
period before the deluge, long though it was. It is, however, possible that,
for some more secret reason which escapes me, this city, which we say is earthly,
is exhibited in all its generations down to Lamech and his sons, and that then
the writer withholds from recording the rest which may have existed before
the deluge. And without supposing so late a puberty in these men, there might
be another reason for tracing the generations by sons who were not first-born,
viz., that the same city which Cain built, and named after his son Enoch, may
have had a widely extended dominion and many kings, not reigning simultaneously,
but successively, the reigning king besetting always his successor. Cain himself
would be the first of these kings; his son Enoch, in whose name the city in
which he reigned was built, would be the second; the third Irad, whom Enoch
begat; the fourth Mehujael, whom Irad begat; the fifth Methusael, whom Mehujael
begat; the sixth Lamech, whom Methusael begat, and who is the seventh from
Adam through Cain. But it was not necessary that the first-born should succeed
their fathers in the kingdom, but those would succeed who were recommended
by the possession of some virtue useful to the earthly city, or who were chosen
by lot, or the son who was best liked by his father would succeed by a kind
of hereditary right to the throne. And the deluge may have happened during
the lifetime and reign of Lamech, and may have destroyed him along with all
other men, save those who were in the ark. For we cannot be surprised that,
during so long a period from Adam to the deluge, and with the ages of individuals
varying as they did, there should not be an equal number of generations in
both lines, but seven in Cain's, and ten in Seth's; for as I have already said,
Lamech is the seventh from Adam, Noah the tenth; and in Lamech's case not one
son only is registered, as in the former instances, but more, because it was
uncertain which of them would have succeeded when he died, if there had intervened
any time to reign between his death and the deluge.

But in
whatever manner the generations of Cain's line are traced downwards, whether
it be by first-born
sons or
by the heirs to the throne, it seems to
me that I must by no means omit to notice that, when Lamech had been set down
as the seventh from Adam, there were named, in addition, as many of his children
as made up this number to eleven, which is the number signifying sin; for three
sons and one daughter are added. The wives of Lamech have another signification,
different from that which I am now pressing. For at present I am speaking of
the children, and not of those by whom the children were begotten. Since, then,
the law is symbolized by the number ten,--whence that memorable Decalogue,--there
is no doubt that the number eleven, which goes beyond(1) ten, symbolizes the
transgression of the law, and consequently sin. For this reason, eleven veils
of goat's skin were ordered to be hung in the tabernacle of the testimony,
which served in the wanderings of God's people as an ambulatory temple. And
in that haircloth there was a reminder of sins, because the goats were to be
set on the left hand of the Judge; and therefore, when we confess our sins,
we prostrate ourselves in haircloth, as if we were saying what is written in
the psalm, "My sin is ever before me."(2) The progeny of Adam, then,
by Cain the murderer, is completed in the number eleven, which symbolizes sin;
and this number itself is made up by a woman, as it was by the same sex that
beginning was made of sin by which we all die. And it was committed that the
pleasure of the flesh, which resists the spirit, might follow; and so Naamah,
the daughter of Lamech, means "pleasure." But from Adam to Noah,
in the line of Seth, there are ten generations. And to Noah three sons are
added, of whom, while one fell into sin, two were blessed by their father;
so that, if you deduct the reprobate and add the gracious sons to the number,
you get twelve,--a number signalized in the case of the patriarchs and of the
apostles, and made up of the parts of the number seven multiplied into one
another,--for three times four, or four times three, give twelve. These things
being so, I see that I must consider and mention how these two lines, which
by their separate genealogies depict the two cities one of earth-born, the
other of regenerated persons, became afterwards so mixed and confused, that
the whole human race, with the exception of eight persons, deserved to perish
in the deluge.

CHAP. 21.--WHY IT IS THAT, AS SOON AS CAIN'S SON ENOCH HAS BEEN NAMED, THE
GENEALOGY IS FORTHWITH CONTINUED AS FAR AS THE DELUGE, WHILE AFTER THE MENTION
OF ENOS, SETH'S SON, THE NARRATIVE RETURNS AGAIN TO THE CREATION OF MAN.

We must
first see why, in the enumeration of Cain's posterity, after Enoch, in whose
name the city
was built, has been
first of all mentioned, the rest
are at once enumerated down to that terminus of which I have spoken, and at
which that race and the whole line was destroyed in the deluge; while, after
Enos the son of Seth, has been mentioned, the rest are not at once named down
to the deluge, but a clause is inserted to the following effect: "This
is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in
the likeness of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed
them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created."(1)
This seems to me to be inserted for this purpose, that here again the reckoning
of the times may start from Adam himself--a purpose which the writer had not
in view in speaking of the earthly city, as if God mentioned it, but did not
take account of its duration. But why does he return to this recapitulation
after mentioning the son of Seth, the man who hoped to call on the name of
the Lord God, unless because it was fit thus to present these two cities, the
one beginning with a murderer and ending in a murderer (for Lamech, too, acknowledges
to his two wives that he had committed murder), the other built up by him who
hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God? For the highest and complete terrestrial
duty of the city of God, which is a stranger in this world, is that which was
exemplified in the individual who was begotten by him who typified the resurrection
of the murdered Abel. That one man is the unity of the whole heavenly city,
not yet indeed complete, but to be completed, as this prophetic figure foreshows.
The son of Cain, therefore, that is, the son of possession (and of what but
an earthly possession?), may have a name in the earthly city which was built
in his name. It is of such the Psalmist says, "They call their lands after
their own names."(2) Wherefore they incur what is written in another psalm: "Thou,
O Lord, in Thy city wilt despise their image."(3) But as for the son of
Seth, the son of the resurrection, let him hope to call on the name of the
Lord God. For he prefigures that society of men which says, "But I am
like a green olive-tree in the house of God: I have trusted in the mercy of
God."(4) But let him not seek the empty honors of a famous name upon earth,
for "Blessed is the man that maketh the name of the Lord his trust, and
respecteth not vanities nor lying follies."(5) After having presented
the two cities, the one founded in the material good of this world, the other
in hope in God, but both starting from a common gate opened in Adam into this
mortal state, and both running on and running out to their proper and merited
ends, Scripture begins to reckon the times, and in this reckoning includes
other generations, making a recapitulation from Adam, out of whose condemned
seed, as out of one mass handed over to merited damnation, God made some vessels
of wrath to dishonor and others vessels of mercy to honor; in punishment rendering
to the former what is due, in grace giving to the latter what is not due: in
order that by the very comparison of itself with the vessels of wrath, the
heavenly city, which sojourns on earth, may learn not to put confidence in
the liberty of its own will, but may hope to call on the name of the Lord God.
For will, being a nature which was made good by the good God, but mutable by
the immutable, because it was made out of nothing, can both decline from good
to do evil, which takes place when it freely chooses, and can also escape the
evil and do good, which takes place only by divine assistance.

CHAP. 22.--OF THE FALL OF THE SONS OF GOD WHO WERE CAPTIVATED BY THE DAUGHTERS
OF MEN, WHEREBY ALL, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF EIGHT PERSONS, DESERVEDLY PERISHED
IN THE DELUGE.

When the
human race, in the exercise of this freedom of will, increased and advanced,
there arose
a mixture and
confusion of the two cities by their participation
in a common iniquity. And this calamity, as well as the first, was occasioned
by woman, though not in the same way; for these women were not themselves betrayed,
neither did they persuade the men to sin, but having belonged to the earthly
city and society of the earthly, they had been of corrupt manners from the
first, and were loved for their bodily beauty by the sons of God, or the citizens
of the other city which sojourns in this world. Beauty is indeed a good gift
of God; but that the good may not think it a great good, God dispenses it even
to the wicked. And thus, when the good that is great and proper to the good
was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which is not peculiar
to the good, but common to the good and the evil; and when they were captivated
by the daughters of men, they adopted the manners of the earthly to win them
as their brides, and forsook the godly ways they had followed in their own
holy society. And thus beauty, which is indeed God's handiwork, but only a
temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not filly loved in preference
to God, the eternal, spiritual, and unchangeable good. When the miser prefers
his gold to justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but of the man; and
so with every created thing. For though it be good, it may be loved with an
evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately;
evilly, when inordinately, It is this which some one has briefly said in these
verses in praise of the Creator:(1) "These are Thine, they are good, because
Thou art good who didst create them. There is in them nothing of ours, unless
the sin we coimmit when we forget the order of things, and instead of Thee
love that which Thou hast made."

But if
the Creator is truly loved, that is, if He Himself is loved and not another
thing in His
stead, He cannot
be evilly loved; for love itself is to
be ordinately loved, because we do well to love that which, when we love it,
makes us live well and virtuously. So that it seems to me that it is a brief
but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love; and on this
account, in the Canticles, the bride of Christ, the city of God, sings, "Order
love within me."(2) It was the order of this love, then, this charity
or attachment, which the sons of God disturbed when they forsook God, and were
enamored of the daughters of men.(3) And by these two names (sons of God and
daughters of men) the two cities are sufficiently distinguished. For though
the former were by nature children of men, they had come into possession of
another name by grace. For in the same Scripture in which the sons of God are
said to have loved the daughters of men, they are also called angels of God;
whence many suppose that they were not men but angels.

CHAP. 23.--WHETHER WE ARE TO BELIEVE THAT ANGELS, WHO ARE OF A SPIRITUAL SUBSTANCE,
FELL IN LOVE WITH THE BEAUTY OF WOMEN, AND SOUGHT THEM IN MARRIAGE, AND THAT
FROM THIS CONNECTION GIANTS WERE BORN.

In the
third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question,
but did not decide
whether
angels, inasmuch as they are spirits,
could have bodily intercourse with women. For it is written, "Who maketh
His angels spirits,"(4) that is, He makes those who are by nature spirits
His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the
Greek word <greek>aUUels</greek>, which in Latin appears as "angelus," means
a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, "and
His ministers a flaming fire," or means that God's ministers ought to
blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy
Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could
not only be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very general rumor, which
many have verified by their own experience, or which trustworthy persons who
have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who
are commonly called "incubi," had often made wicked assaults upon
women, and satisfied their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called
Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is
so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it.(5) From these assertions,
indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial
substance (for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt
by the body), and who are capable of lust and of mingling sensibly with women;
but certainly I could by no means believe that God's holy angels could at that
time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said, "For
if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered
them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment."(1) I think
he rather speaks of these who first apostatized from God, along with their
chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man under the form of a serpent
But the same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even godly
man have been called angels; for of John it is written: "Behold, I send
my messenger (angel) before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way."(2) And
the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially communicated to him, was
called an angel.(3)

But some
are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the connection
between those
who are
called angels of God and the women they loved were not
men like our own breed, but giants; just as if there were not born even in
our own time (as I have mentioned above) men of much greater size than the
ordinary stature. Was there not at Rome a few years ago, when the destruction
of the city now accomplished by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her
father and mother, who by her gigantic size over-topped all others? Surprising
crowds from all quarters came to see her, and that which struck them most was
the circumstance that neither of her parents were quite up to the tallest ordinary
stature. Giants therefore might well be born, even before the sons of God,
who are also called angels of God, formed a connection with the daughters of
men, or of those living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of
Seth formed a connection with the daughters of Cain. For thus speaks even the
canonical Scripture itself in the book in which we read of this; its words
are: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the
earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters
of men that they were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all which they
chose. And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for
that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There
were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons
of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the
same became the giants, men of renown."(4) These words of the divine book
sufficiently indicate that already there were giants in the earth in those
days, in which the sons of God took wives of the children of men, when they
loved them because they were good, that is, fair. For it is the custom of this
Scripture to call those who are beautiful in appearance "good." But
after this connection had been formed, then too were giants born. For the words
are: "There were giants in the earth in those days, and also after that,
when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men." Therefore there
were giants both before, "in those days," and "also after that." And
the words, "they bare children to them," show plainly enough that
before the sons of God fell in this fashion they begat children to God, not
to themselves,--that is to say, not moved by the lust of sexual intercourse,
but discharging the duty of propagation, intending to produce not a family
to gratify their own pride, but citizens to people the city of God; and to
these they as God's angels would bear the message, that they should place their
hope in God, like him who was born of Seth, the son of resurrection, and who
hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their offspring
would be co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren in the family of which
God is the Father.

But that
those angels were not angels in the sense of not being men, as some suppose,
Scripture
itself decides,
which unambiguously declares that they were
men. For when it had first been stated that "the angels of God saw the
daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which
they chose," it was immediately added, "And the Lord God said, My
Spirit shall not always strive with these men, for that they also are flesh." For
by the Spirit of God they had been made angels of God, and sons of God; but
declining towards lower things, they are called men, a name of nature, not
of grace; and they are called flesh, as deserters of the Spirit, and by their
desertion deserted [by Him]. The Septuagint indeed calls them both angels of
God and sons of God, though all the copies do not show this, some having only
the name" sons of God." And Aquila, whom the Jews prefer to the other
interpreters,(5) has translated neither angels of God nor sons of God, but
sons of gods. But both are correct. For they were both sons of God, and thus
brothers of their own fathers, who were children of the same God; and they
were sons of gods, because begotten by gods, together with whom they themselves
also were gods, according to that expression of the psalm: "I have said,
Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High."(1) For the
Septuagint translators are justly believed to have received the Spirit of prophecy;
so that, if they made any alterations under His authority, and did not adhere
to a strict translation, we could not doubt that this was divinely dictated.
However, the Hebrew word may be said to be ambiguous, and to be susceptible
of either translation, "sons of God," or "sons of gods."

Let us
omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are called apocryphal, because
their obscure
origin
was unknown to the fathers from whom the authority
of the true Scriptures has been transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained
succession. For though there is some truth in these apocryphal writings, yet
they contain so many false statements, that they have no canonical authority.
We cannot deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine writings,
for this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical epistle. But it is
not without reason that these writings have no place in that canon of Scripture
which was preserved in the temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of
successive priests; for their antiquity brought them under suspicion, and it
was impossible to ascertain whether these were his genuine writings, and they
were not brought forward as genuine by the persons who were found to have carefully
preserved the canonical books by a successive transmission. So that the writings
which are produced under his name, and which contain these fables about the
giants, saying that their fathers were not men; are properly judged by prudent
men to be not genuine; just as many writings are produced by heretics under
the names both of other prophets, and more recently, under the names of the
apostles, all of which, after careful examination, have been set apart from
canonical authority under the title of Apocrypha. There is therefore no doubt
that, according to the Hebrew and Christian canonical Scriptures, there were
many giants before the deluge, and that these were citizens of the earthly
society of men, and that the sons of God, who were according to the flesh the
sons of Seth, sunk into this community when they forsook righteousness, Nor
need we wonder that giants should be born even from these. For all of their
children were not giants; but there were more then than in the remaining periods
since the deluge. And it pleased the Creator to produce them, that it might
thus be demonstrated that neither beauty, nor yet size and strength, are of
much moment to the wise man, whose blessedness lies in spiritual and immortal
blessings, in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things that are
the peculiar property of the good, and are not shared by good and bad alike.
It is this which another prophet confirms when he says, "These were the
giants, famous from the beginning, that were of so great stature, and so expert
in war. Those did not the Lord choose, neither gave He the way of knowledge
unto them; but they were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and perished
through their own foolishness."(2)

CHAP.
24.--HOW WE ARE TO UNDERSTAND THIS WHICH THE LORD SAID TO THOSE WHO WERE
TO PERISH IN THE
FLOOD: "THEIR
DAYS SHALL BE 120 YEARS."

But that
which God said, "Their days shall be a hundred and twenty years," is
not to be understood as a prediction that henceforth men should not live longer
than 120 years,--for even after the deluge we find that they lived more than
500 years,--but we are to understand that God said this when Noah had nearly
completed his fifth century, that is, had lived 480 years, which Scripture,
as it frequently uses the name of the whole of the largest part, calls 500
years. Now the deluge came in the 600th year of Noah's life, the second month;
and thus 120 years were predicted as being the remaining span of those who
were doomed, which years being spent, they should be destroyed by the deluge,
And it is not unreasonably believed that the deluge came as it did, because
already there were not found upon earth any who were not worthy of sharing
a death so manifestly judicial,--not that a good man, who must die some time,
would be a jot the worse of such a death after it was past. Nevertheless there
died in the deluge none of those mentioned in the sacred Scripture as descended
from Seth. But here is the divine account of the cause of the deluge: "The
Lord God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it
repented(3) the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him
at His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man, whom I have created, from
the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the
fowls of the air: for I am angry that I have made them."(4)

CHAP. 25.--OF THE ANGER OF GOD, WHICH DOES NOT INFLAME HIS MIND, NOR DISTURB
HIS UNCHANGEABLE TRANQUILLITY.

The anger of God is not a disturbing emotion of His mind, but a judgment by
which punishment is inflicted upon sin. His thought and reconsideration also
are the unchangeable reason which changes things; for He does not, like man,
repent of anything He has done, because in all matters His decision is as inflexible
as His prescience is certain. But if Scripture were not to use such expressions
as the above, it would not familiarly insinuate itself into the minds of all
classes of men, whom it seeks access to for their good, that it may alarm the
proud, arouse the careless, exercise the inquisitive, and satisfy the intelligent;
and this it could not do, did it not first stoop, and in a manner descend,
to them where they lie. But its denouncing death on all the animals of earth
and air is a declaration of the vastness of the disaster that was approaching:
not that it threatens destruction to the irrational animals as if they too
had incurred it by sin.

CHAP. 26.--THAT THE ARK WHICH NOAH WAS ORDERED TO MAKE FIGURES IN EVERY RESPECT
CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.

Moreover, inasmuch as God commanded Noah, a just man, and, as the truthful
Scripture says, a man perfect in his generation,--not indeed with the perfection
of the citizens of the city of God in that immortal condition in which they
equal the angels, but in so far as they can be perfect in their sojourn in
this world,--inasmuch as God commanded him, I say, to make an ark, in which
he might be rescued from the destruction of the flood, along with his family,
i.e., his wife, sons, and daughters-in-law, and along with the animals who,
in obedience to God's command, came to him into the ark: this is certainly
a figure of the city of God sojourning in this world; that is to say, of the
church, which is rescued by the wood on which hung the Mediator of God and
men, the man Christ Jesus.(1) For even its very dimensions, in length, breadth,
and height, represent the human body in which He came, as it had been foretold.
For the length of the human body, from the crown of the head to the sole of
the foot, is six times its breadth from side to side, and ten times its depth
or thickness, measuring from back to front: that is to say, if you measure
a man as he lies on his back or on his face, he is six times as long from head
to foot as he is broad from side to side, and ten tittles as long as he is
high from the ground. And therefore the ark was made 300 cubits in length,
50 in breadth, and 30 in height. And its having a door made in the side of
it certainly signified the wound which was made when the side of the Crucified
was pierced with the spear; for by this those who come to Him enter; for thence
flowed the sacraments by which those who believe are initiated. And the fact
that it was ordered to be made of squared timbers, signifies the immoveable
steadiness of the life of the saints; for however you turn a cube, it still
stands. And the other peculiarities of the ark's construction are signs of
features of the church.

But we
have not now time to pursue this subject; and, indeed, we have already dwelt
upon it in the
work we wrote
against Faustus the Manichean, who denies
that there is anything prophesied of Christ in the Hebrew books. It may be
that one man's exposition excels another's, and that ours is not the best;
but all that is said must be referred to this city of God we speak of, which
sojourns in this wicked world as in a deluge, at least if the expositor would
not widely miss the meaning of the author. For example, the interpretation
I have given in the work against Faustus, of the words, "with lower, second,
and third stories shalt thou make it," is, that because the church is
gathered out of all nations, it is said to have two stories, to represent the
two kinds of men,--the circumcision, to wit, and the uncircumcision, or, as
the apostle otherwise calls them, Jews and Gentiles; and to have three stories,
because all the nations were replenished from the three sons of Noah. Now any
one may object to this interpretation, and may give another which harmonizes
with the rule of faith. For as the ark was to have rooms not only on the lower,
but also on the upper stories, which were called "third stories," that
there might be a habitable space on the third floor from the basement, some
one may interpret these to mean the three graces commended by the apostle.--faith,
hope, and charity. Or even more suitably they may be supposed to represent
those three harvests in the gospel, thirty-fold, sixty-fold, an hundred-fold,--chaste
marriage dwelling in the ground floor, chaste widowhood in the upper, and chaste
virginity in the top story. Or any better interpretation may be given, so long
as the reference to this city is maintained. And the same statement I would
make of all the remaining particulars in this passage which require exposition,
viz., that although different explanations are given, yet they must all agree
with the one harmonious catholic faith.

CHAP. 27.--OF THE ARK AND THE DELUGE, AND THAT WE CANNOT AGREE WITH THOSE
WHO RECEIVE THE BARE HISTORY, BUT REJECT THE ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION, NOR
WITH THOSE WHO MAINTAIN THE FIGURATIVE AND NOT THE HISTORICAL MEANING.

Yet no one ought to suppose either that these things were written for no purpose,
or that we should study only the historical truth, apart from any allegorical
meanings; or, on the contrary, that they are only allegories, and that there
were no such facts at all, or that, whether it be so or no, there is here no
prophecy of the church. For what right-minded man will contend that books so
religiously preserved during thousands of years, and transmitted by so orderly
a succession, were written without an object, or that only the bare historical
facts are to be considered when we read them? For, not to mention other instances,
if the number of the animals entailed the construction of an ark of great size,
where was the necessity of sending into it two unclean and seven clean animals
of each species, when both could have been preserved in equal numbers? Or could
not God, who ordered them to be preserved in order to replenish the race, restore
them in the same way He had created them?

But they who contend that these things never happened, but are only figures
setting forth other things, in the first place suppose that there could not
be a flood so great that the water should rise fifteen cubits above the highest
mountains, because it is said that clouds cannot rise above the top of Mount
Olympus, because it reaches the sky where there is none of that thicker atmosphere
in which winds, clouds, and rains have their origin. They do not reflect that
the densest element of all, earth, can exist there; or perhaps they deny that
the top of the mountain is earth. Why, then, do these measurers and weighers
of the elements contend that earth can be raised to those aerial altitudes,
and that water cannot, while they admit that water is lighter, and liker to
ascend than earth? What reason do they adduce why earth, the heavier and lower
element, has for so many ages scaled to the tranquil ether, while water, the
lighter, and more likely to ascend, is not suffered to do the same even for
a brief space of time?

They say,
too, that the area of that ark could not contain so many kinds of animals
of both sexes,
two of
the unclean and seven of the clean. But they
seem to me to reckon only one area of 300 cubits long and 50 broad, and not
to remember that there was another similar in the story above, and yet another
as large in the story above that again; and that there was consequently an
area of 900 cubits by 150. And if we accept what Origen(1) has with some appropriateness
suggested, that Moses the man of God, being, as it is written, "learned
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,"(2) who delighted in geometry, may
have meant geometrical cubits, of which they say that one is equal to six of
our cubits, then who does not see what a capacity these dimensions give to
the ark? For as to their objection that an ark of such size could not be built,
it is a very silly calumny; for they are aware that huge cities have been built,
and they should remember that the ark was an hundred years in building. Or,
perhaps, though stone can adhere to stone when cemented with nothing but lime,
so that a wall of several miles may be constructed, yet plank cannot be riveted
to plank by mortices, bolts, nails, and pitch-glue, so as to construct an ark
which was not made with curved ribs but straight timbers, which was not to
be launched by its builders, but to be lifted by the natural pressure of the
water when it reached it, and which was to be preserved from shipwreck as it
floated about rather by divine oversight than by human skill.

As to
another customary inquiry of the scrupulous about the very minute creatures,
not only such
as mice
and lizards, but also locusts, beetles, flies, fleas,
and so forth, whether there were not in the ark a larger number of them than
was determined by God in His command, those persons who are moved by this difficulty
are to be reminded that the words "every creeping thing of the earth" only
indicate that it was not needful to preserve in the ark the animals that can
live in the water, whether the fishes that live submerged in it, or the sea-birds
that swim on its surface. Then, when it is said "male and female," no
doubt reference is made to the repairing of the races, and consequently there
was no need for those creatures being in the ark which are born without the
union of the sexes from inanimate things, or from their corruption; or if they
were in the ark, they might be there as they commonly are in houses, not in
any determinate numbers; or if it was necessary that there should be a definite
number of all those animals that cannot naturally live in the water, that so
the most sacred mystery which was being enacted might be bodied forth and perfectly
figured in actual realities, still this was not the care of Noah or his sons,
but of God. For Noah did not catch the animals and put them into the ark, but
gave them entrance as they came seeking it. For this is the force of the words, "They
shall come unto thee,"(1)--not, that is to say, by man's effort, but by
God's will. But certainly we are not required to believe that those which have
no sex also came; for it is expressly and definitely said, "They shall
be male and female."' For there are some animals which are born out of
corruption, but yet afterwards they themselves copulate and produce offspring,
as flies; but others, which have no sex, like bees. Then, as to those animals
which have sex, but without ability to propagate their kind, like mules and
shemules, it is probable that they were not in the ark, but that it was counted
sufficient to preserve their parents, to wit, the horse and the ass; and this
applies to all hybrids. Yet, if it was necessary for the completeness of the
mystery, they were there; for even this species has "male and female."

Another question is commonly raised regarding the food of the carnivorous
animals,--whether, without transgressing the command which fixed the number
to be preserved, there were necessarily others included in the ark for their
sustenance; or, as is more probable, there might be some food which was not
flesh, and which yet suited all. For we know how many animals whose food is
flesh eat also vegetable products and fruits. especially figs and chestnuts.
What wonder is it, therefore, if that wise and just man was instructed by God
what would suit each, so that without flesh he prepared and stored provision
fit for every species? And what is there which hunger would not make animals
eat? Or what could not be made sweet and wholesome by God, who, with a divine
facility, might have enabled them to do without food at all, had it not been
requisite to the completeness of so great a mystery that they should be fed?
But none but a contentious man can suppose that there was no prefiguring of
the church in so manifold and circumstantial a detail. For the nations have
already so filled the church, and are comprehended in the framework of its
unity, the clean and unclean together, until the appointed end, that this one
very manifest fulfillment leaves no doubt how we should interpret even those
others which are somewhat more obscure, and which cannot so readily be discerned.
And since this is so, if not even the most audacious will presume to assert
that these things were written without a purpose, or that though the events
really happened they mean nothing, or that they did not really happen, but
are only allegory, or that at all events they are far from having any figurative
reference to the church; if it has been made out that, on the other hand, we
must rather believe that there was a wise purpose in their being committed
to memory and to writing, and that they did happen, and have a significance,
and that this significance has a prophetic reference to the church, then this
book, having served this purpose, may now be closed, that we may go on to trace
in the history subsequent to the deluge the courses of the two cities,--the
earthly, that lives according to men, and the heavenly, that lives according
to God.